Artificial lures have been used for many years to catch fish in rivers, lakes, estuaries, bays, and oceans. Artificial lures typically are formed from either hard or soft materials. Hard bodied lures commonly have hooks attached to an outer surface of the lure, while soft bodied lures often have hooks completely concealed within the lure or at least partially concealed in cavities in the lures. Because of the rigidity inherent in hard bodied lures, the hooks are easily attached to the lures such as by screwing an attachment mechanism into the lure. Fish have been known to pull hooks from hard bodied lures, but this is not common. Instead, hooks often straighten or are pulled out of a fish's mouth before being pulled from a lure.
In contrast, soft bodied lures face a much larger challenge in keeping a hook in the body of lure. Most soft bodied lures have one or more hooks inserted into the body such that an eye of the hook protrudes from the body. The hook point may either be buried in the lure body, such as commonly found with a weedless configuration such as a Texas rigged plastic worm or other such lure, or may protrude from the lure. Often times, a soft bodied lure does not have a slot or cavity into which a hook may be inserted. Rather, a hook may be inserted into the lure body by inserting the point of the hook and forcing the point through the body until it protrudes out of the lure body. There exists numerous ways of positioning a hook in a soft bodied lure, which are known to those of ordinary skill in the art and not discussed here.
An example of a particular soft bodied lure is shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 shows a cross-section of a soft bodied lure resembling a shrimp. The lure includes a cavity for containing a hook. The cavity generally follows the shape of the hook and enables a point of the hook to protrude through a top surface of the lure while an eye of the hook protrudes through the nose of the lure. A weight may be positioned in bottom aspects of the lure body by inserting the weight through an opening in the bottom surface of the lure. The weight positioned in the midsection of the lure enables a lure to maintain a relatively level attitude in the water, which closely resembles a natural baitfish. Other soft bodied lures have weights positioned near a nose of a lure for use in water deeper than water in which lures having a weight in a midsection are typically used. Both lures provide excellent imitations of different types of baitfish and are designed for use in different situations and different areas of a water body.
During use, the lure is pulled through the water by a line attached to the eye of the hook. After continued use, the cavity in the lure body containing the hook often becomes disfigured or torn due to a host of factors, including, fish strikes, snagging the lure on various structures, impacting the lure against sea walls, docks, pilings, tree limbs, and other structure. Damage from these events may occur after use of the lure for a couple hours or after only a single cast.
When a cavity holding a hook in a soft bodied lure becomes damaged, the hook becomes easier to move from its proper position in the lure, which greatly impacts the lure's ability to entice a fish to strike. For instance, when a cavity of a soft bodied lure becomes damaged, pulling the hook by the line attached to an eye of the hook may cause the eye of the hook to be pulled further out of the nose and cause the bend of the hook to be further inserted into the lure body, as shown in FIG. 2. This causes the lure body to curve into an unnatural position that does not entice fish to strike. Furthermore, a lure body in a position as shown in FIG. 2 does not maintain a natural attitude in the water when pulled through the water. Rather, the lure would spin or roll onto its side. Either action is unnatural and would spook any fish around the lure, thereby defeating the entire reason for using the lure in the first place, which is to entice a fish to strike the lure. A damaged lure body may also allow the hook to rotate relative to the lure body and foul hook itself by allowing the point of the hook to be driven into the body of the soft-bodied lure, thereby further damaging the lure and preventing the hook point from being able to pierce a fish's mouth should a fish strike the fouled lure. Thus, a need exists for positioning a hook in a soft bodied lure that resists movement relative to the lure body even after the lure has been damaged as a result of fish strikes, impacts with seawalls, docks, pilings and other structures, or other such damage.